Background
Gun control and gun rights topics frequently find their way
into the news. Unfortunately, given the characteristic biases of news agencies,
they tend to advocate for the gun control side of this debate or otherwise give
gun rights arguments short shrift. This is deeply upsetting and a source of
considerable concern to members of the shooting community, who are typically highly
responsible with their firearms and inclined to come down on abuse of firearms
with considerable fury. Shouldn’t the news media share these ethics when
exercising *their* rights?
Still, gun control has been a hard sell in the United States
as a whole. Gun rights opponents achieve very few wins despite relentless (and
hopelessly misinformed) media support and a non-trivial number of politicians
using tragedy as a pretext for promoting their agenda. Most of their successes
have been local to a handful of states.
However, this writer believes that there could be ways found
to render gun control efforts not only weak but absolutely beaten and
toothless. Rather than costly victories where gun rights advocates retaliate
after damaging legislation has passed (e.g., the punitive 1994 election after
Clinton’s “assault weapon” ban or Colorado’s electoral revolt after magazine
bans passed), what if we could get to a point where even suggesting punitive
gun rights infringements like “assault weapons” bans became career suicide?
One large reason for even the modest successes of gun
control and other authoritarian rule making in the United States is that the
media and career politicians has divided the populace so thoroughly, in so many
ways. Too many people are trained to be good little partisans and attack The
Other: based on Democrat/Republican team membership, based on our ethnic
groups, based on sex and other personal characteristics like religion….in a
dozen different ways. This only helps authoritarian groups like gun control advocates
because they apply a stress (e.g., the threat of a gun ban) and gun rights
advocates are not organized enough to fight it instantly.
These societal divisions have made coalition building on this topic complicated in the past…but could end up being one of our greatest assets. Gun owners are a diverse lot,
with a variety of political positions, from different ethnic backgrounds. When
we cooperate in a dire emergency, we can be powerful. If we could learn to
cooperate as a rule, we might be absolutely unbeatable.
An Opportunity
The stereotype is that gun owners are mostly white male conservatives…and
probably straight. While these people may comprise a significant part of the
gun geek population, over 30 years of being a shooter and/or a gun rights
activist has shown me that it is very far from being the only truth about the
demographics of the shooting community.
Personally, I have gone shooting with:
- Dozens of women at various skill levels. Some were new shooters who I was helping to learn…many were peers…some were teachers helping me boost *my* skill level
- Black shooters with similar shooting interests. I have also known other black folks on the Internet since the 1990s (the good old Usenet days) who are avid shooters
- Shooters in the LGBT community. Around 1999/2000, I helped as a safety assistant for a Seattle area Pink Pistols type group. A new Pink Pistols group is now active in the Seattle area and affiliated groups are active across the country
- Quite a number of pro-gun Democrats and other non-Republicans
My Plan
The goal here is manifestly NOT to cause any divisions or Balkanization.
Instead, I wish to find areas in which diverse communities can find common
ground for working together and overcome real or perceived differences. This
seems like a productive discussion to have: talking to members of each of these
communities about their impression of the overall gun community, specific
concerns/interests and finding common ground with *all* pro-gun folks to
protect this vital civil liberty.
After talking to folks and gathering their responses, this
blog will publish 4 blog posts (1 per group) focusing on each of the groups
mentioned above, discussing firearms/political topics…with a follow-up summary
presenting a possible road map for future efforts, should ideas for such
present themselves.
For each group, I will look at and present information in
these areas:
- History and past involvement in the gun community or with gun ownership. In other words, is there a historical context for understanding the group's use or reluctance to use firearms?
- Productive approaches to political cooperation by finding commonality. What sort of projects, initiatives and candidates are acceptable...what approaches or political approaches are problematic?
- Specific concerns and interests
- Undoubtedly other angles that I haven’t thought of yet
(Many thanks to Oleg Volk for his kind permission to use his images in this project.)
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